Would like to apologise to anyone he's offended by having an opinion

Dancing On Ice 7 – Week 7

Chico & Jodeyne Higgins : I love, love, love, love, LOVE that the one serious week we’ve had so far in the competition, where the show eschewed nonsensical themes, and judging on “performance and enthusiasm”, and spending half a routine titting around with a mic stand in favour of a SERIOUS AND RIGOROUS TEST OF TECHNICAL SKATING SKILLS, began with the phrase “skating to ‘Mama Do The Hump”…IT’S CHICO!”. Way to set the tone there. And of course, we all know what happens when Dean has to choreograph to something written after 1994. That’s right, CONTEMPORARY CHOREOGRAPHY. By which I mean “punching the air in different directions whilst wining your waist”. Of course Chico is…Chico, so he seized the opportunity with both hands whilst Jodeyne wore the face of someone rapidly reaching 4 Gs and burning up on re-entry to the Earth’s atmosphere. I’m not sure Jodeyne’s God will let her do the hump unless she prays first and wears the special underwear. Anyway, this was another good solid 3rd place finalist performance from Chico, and I’d be very surprised at this point if he wound up as being anything else, but hey, he might build himself a personality beyond “Mr Motivator for the 21st Century” at some point and surprise us all.

Chemmy Alcott & Sean Rice: Poor Chemmy. Most people in the Bottom Two at least get a decent performance position the week afterwards, and a routine that plays to their strengths (see : Heidi wearing a catsuit and being spun around to a Bond theme in the pimp slot). Chemmy on the other hand got shoved out in second, had Robin whine about how the public were WRONG not to recognise Chemmy’s talents (…because that always goes down well), and then performed a routine where she danced around weightlessly in a pwetty pwincess pink dress to Wilson Phillips. Is that the Chemmy any of us want to see? If you’re going to skate to Hold On at least have it be a tribute to Bridesmaids and have her flamboyantly shit in a sink half way round. Anyway, the obvious occurred and Chemmy was in the Bottom Three *again* and was saved *again* because of…well…events. Still, after last week’s heart-breaking tale of misery and woe with the break-up of Heidi and Dave Berry, I’m glad that someone on this show has found love. When Gubba announced that Chemmy had finally named the date she was going to marry her skis…I welled up a little. And of course was a little bis pissed off that a woman can marry SOME SPORTSWEAR BUT I STILL CAN’T MARRY MY BOYFRIEND IN THE 21ST CENTURY I ASK YOU.

Jennifer Ellison & Daniel Whiston: Hey, did you hear that Jennifer Ellison kicked herself in the head with her skate last week? Because if you haven’t, Dancing On Ice want to tell you about it. Actually forget that, they want to show you it. Again. In Super slow-motion, just so you can see bits of her cerebellum spurt across the ice. To be fair, I don’t blame them for not letting go of the one interesting thing she’s done on the show so far, but this was a bit much. Somewhere around the part where Dean merrily recounted how they’d been told not to turn her upside down in case her eyeballs fell out down her nostril holes. My favourite part of Jennifer’s Journey In Bleeding From The Scalp was Daniel eerily saying how odd it was to see Jennifer’s blood on him, like a serial killer on Criminal Minds. Anyway, this week Jennifer tottered around like your nan (/Rosemary Conley – the Nation’s Nan), but it was to Candyman so she got bonus marks for dressing like a slutty WAC (/”putting on a performance”) and “being brave”. Apart from Katarina who actually tried to mark her on the actual skills she showed in ULTIMATE SKATING SKILLS TEST WEEK and therefore got the bejesus booed out of her as a result. This happened a lot this week. Oh well.

Andy Whyment & Vicky Ogden: The fact that he’s reached the stage of Comedy Contestanthood where he starts to get a bit self-righteous and “IN MY BRAIN I THINK I AM AS GOOD AS CHICO AT LEAST, SO THAT MAKES IT TRUE” makes me want to discuss him in this recaplet even less but…he wasn’t awful this week? “Land Of 1000 Dances” is so on the nose as a music-pick for a contestant of his type that I feel like just dismissing it out of hand entirely, but he did it about as well as could have been expected apart from the bit where legs started wrapping around one another like snakes around the Hippocratic Staff. Of course than Katarina marked him on his technical skating skill and got booed. Then he said something incoherent and she told him to fuck off and get a translator before chatting shit to her. Or something. Then Karen glared at her like Katarina had won two Olympic Gold Medals when the best Karen ever did was 6th and had to put up with Nicky Slater the whole time whilst she did it OH WAIT THAT’S WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED, SIT YOUR ARSE DOWN KAREN.

Sebastien Foucan & Brioche Delcourt: I’ll admit it now, with one thing or another I’ve watched about two results shows of this this series up to this point, and they were both crap and boring and I almost wasn’t going to bother this week what with Homeland and also Ed Stoppard’s socially-awkward cheekbones competing on other channels. But I’m so glad I steeled myself and put myself through the Dancing On Ice Results Show experience because…what a slice of reality tv drama happened here, right? Sebastien pulling a FULL DiAngelo and completely aborting his routine halfway through, and then crying like a great big French Woobie. Then Chemmy crying. Then Brioche crying. Then Katarina crying. Then me crying. Then Christine laughing probably, because that degree of misery can only mean Phillip just done a joke again, which is cue to laugh like Chandler Bing’s Work Laugh. Poor Sebastien. That was…not dignified, in the best possible way. I mean, if you’re going to be a mid-series SHOCK-BOOT then might as well make it memorable right? As if dancing to THE PRODIGY on SUNDAY LUNCH-TIME ITV wasn’t enough (Brioche’s “what the FUCK is this NOISE?” face when Dean cued the music up in practice was easily my highlight of the week) (That and Katarina inventing the word “fierceful” to describe this performance). I’ll miss you Seb. *sniff* (And you Brioche).

Jorgie Porter & Matt Evers: HEADBANGER ALARM! I know it’s cool to be so over the Headbanger at this point. To think that it’s not a true test of actual skating, or that we’ve seen it enough times for this lifetime, or that it favours the female skaters unfairly or blah blah blah whatever, but a very large part of me still gets a little thrill from seeing some tiny woman being flung around by her ankles, cms only away from having her brain dashed out on the ice. Even if the stakes for some women are…erm…less than others. Jorgie. (*cough*). Still, Jorgie didn’t mind, and wasn’t even scared of the Headbanger on the grounds that she couldn’t actually see it whilst she was doing it. Yeah, I thought that Jorgie until I attended a Durham Uni LGBT Lights Out Party. I was never the same again. Anyway, Jorgie skated her ULTIMATE SKILLS TEST to “Louder” by DJ Fresh & Sian Evans, which Jorgie proclaimed to have “proper dirty beats”. I mean…it’s no Utah Saints is it? Anyway, Jorgie’s skating was alright, if not quite at her peak, and she nailed the Headbanger but then again the last 10 seconds of the routine was Matt Evers eye-fucking me whilst grinding his arse around in mid-air so I’M SORRY I’M OFF TO HAVE SOME THOUGHTS.

SAMANDMARK & Alexandra Schauman: Well now I feel like I know more about SAMANDMARK’S penis than any other man alive, apart from possibly MARKANDSAM obviously. Because this was the week when SAMANDMARK almost did the frog lift with Alexandra Schauman, the lift that castrated Minge-Beard Pavel…and possibly Andrei one time? I pay very little attention to Andrei, you may have noted. Anyway, SAMANDMARK ended up not donig the frog lift, but don’t think for one moment that this stopped him talking about his penis because it profoundly did not. SAMANDMARK also had a knee injury this week, preventing him from skating to his full woobie potential to The Wanted OH NOES. And then Katarina marked him properly and the audience booed and Karen pulled unnecessary bitc…well I think we all know the pattern for this week by now don’t we? It’s a shame, because I liked the old-school feel of actual skills being tested as opposed to your ability to pretend to be Top Gun, but not really the old-school feel of Karen picking a fight with the world for not making her centre-of-attention the whole time.

Heidi Range & Andrei Lipanov: LOL. Way to learn a skill Heidi. Anyway, this week Heidi skated to one of her own songs, which I guess was nice. I don’t know why they don’t do that more often on these shows – the only other time I can remember is Melb dancing a samba to Spice Up Your Life on Dancing With The Stars. Also it reminded me of how fit her guy in the video was (he really was). Anyway, Ultimate Skating Skills Test Week was always going to be Heidi’s Waterloo given that…erm…she can’t really skate? Any time she was away from Andrei throughout the entire routine any movement was 95% inertia and 5% her trying to jiggle herself along by wafting her arse about vaguely. I found it odd that the show tried to conceal this with a standard Dancing On Ice bout of lift-drama, but I’m very proud of the public for not falling it and voting her into the Foregone Conclusion Bottom Three anyway. At which point she somehow beat Sebastien, probably, in that she actually did the routine, mostly, sort of. Kind of. Well…she tried anyway, even if it was mostly in the manner of a one-legged duck. Erm…WHAT A TRIUMPHANT EXIT.

Matthew Wolfenden & Nina Ulanova : So he was quite good then? I can’t remember much else, except his gritted teeth “I’m really glad Chico beat me, that was really great, I’m really enjoying all the competition now” reaction to Chico having somehow beat him last week, and Dean’s later passive-aggressive “he’s always so confident” comments. Oh and he did a WRIST-RIPPER which is a bit like a HEAD-BANGER but for the male-celebrities to do I think? At least after the hilarity of Sam Attwater’s attempts at the HEAD-BANGER last series. Remember? When Brioche kept on slapping her wrist into the ice to slow down. Good times. I feel like I’m sliding back into my old patterns of not really caring about front-runners on this show even more than I already was this series. Ah well, never mind, ON TO ROCK WEEK!

Karen so needed to shut up with all that “Katarina, get those marks up!” crap. Yeah, God forbid the double Olympic Gold medallist should mark them properly on the technical skills they’re meant to be showing, you stupid trout.

Worryingly, I’m enjoying Chico’s routines the most at the moment. Not sure what that says about me. I think it’s because Matthew and Jorgie aren’t all that interesting (though Matt Evers’ arse definitely is). I’m hoping Chemmy sticks around for a while too, though that’s looking less likely after being in the bottom two so often. The only chance she probably has is if she’s in the skate-off against Andy or maybe Samandmark.

Yes, you have to admire Karen’s logic – employ a double Olymic and upteen times world champion and someone regarded one of the best female skaters of all time, give her a skating skills test to judge with defined marks and then get snippy when she does just that.

Although I did quite like her pitying look to Karen – sort of a ‘well, some people might have given a note from mum to the judges saying excuse her today her foot hurts – but some of us managed to actually win without resorting to that, thank you very much’.

I’m wondering if Chico is a beneficiary of the fact that he’s quite often on towards the beginning before I’ve had a chance to get bored.

I think Chemmy would beat Andy, Jennifer, and Sam quite easily in a skate-off, and given that one of them’s already been there and Jennifer can’t be too far off, I’d say she might have a couple of weeks left in her yet. One thing about DOI is that they’ve never been afraid to haul people through multiple consecutive skate-offs (Zaraah <3)

I mostly just go on clips so I probably missed Karen’s biggest bitchery, but I did see when they would cut to her, dressed to the nines, cutting her eyes and trying to be outraged. She is just waiting for The Colbys to beam her up. It was hilarious and seemed totally out of place on this show.

As glorious as Matt Evers is from the back, I ended up looking most at Chemmy’s partner, Sean, who looks like he just got out of a porn parody of a Jason Statham film. That is a huge muscular posterior.

As for Chemmy herself, she just seems ungainly, although I was very touched by the way she went up to Sebastien and tried to hug him, but not in that LOOK AT HOW GRACIOUS I AM, LOOK AT ME!!! type of way.

They patronized Heidi to such an embarrassing degree. You made it, you skated the whole way through! Even she tried to downplay this coddling.

Poor Sebastien. This was one of those moments which just seemed so genuine and was full of such a respect and commitment to what he was doing; I think that’s why everyone was so sad along with him.

Why is Daniel popular? Is it because he looks like he’s in Erasure? I don’t even mind the wink but he just doesn’t do a lot for me. And I know they were going for some mix of Aguiliera and don’t-let-her-bash-her-head-open-again, but they made Jennifer Ellison look so matronly, right down to the sprinkling of cleavage to show she’s still got it.

Andy looked like he was going to fall over. I’m glad he didn’t try to use Katarina’s translator comments to start some type of phony class war.

Youtube blocked Matt’s performance. For whatever reason I seem to only see half his performances.

Poor Sam is so cute and yet they dress him very badly – who decided to spray paint him into the same outfit Matt couldn’t even pull off?

Daniel’s popular because he’s been around forever in a constantly changing line-up and he’s got that slightly milquetoast Matthew Cutelr sort of personality that goes down well on these sorts of show. That’s what I’d say anyway. Also him being British probably doesn’t hurt with an ITV audience, just sayin…

Poor Seb 😦 I may have shed a tear so he must have been a good woobie, Artem was the last one to make me cry whilst going ‘awwww’. Dean better up his game – if scaffolding had been involved somewhere then this would never have happened (which makes me even sadder, because props weeks would have been great for Seb). Anyway…

I don’t DISLIKE Andrei I just don’t…get it? My memory of Series 2 is probably the weakest of all the ones I’ve watched (basically I just remember “I LOBB YOU DUNKUN JAYUMS!” lady) and that was his big run wasn’t it?

Just wanted to say that I’m finding this series to be incredibly boring at the moment and iI miss a show I don’t really care.

The blog, however, is as unmissable as ever and is several times better than the actual show! Kudos to you Monkseal for making even the most foregone of conclusions (in terms of top 3 anyway) enjoyable.

One question – why is Chemmy so unpopular? Do the British public hate all confident women? Up to now I thought it was only confident black women but Chemmy’s bottom 2/3 showings make me think otherwise.

I think it’s a combination of not being top-drawer talent, being female, not having a popular pro and not having any fan-base coming in. Nickelodeon Girl last year hit three of those points, but pushed ahead by being a strong skater.

Thank you, Monkseal – your review this week is a gem, with several laugh out loud and frighten the cat moments.

Heidi joins an elite group of people who have skated/danced to their own songs. I’m not entirely surprised that you have eradicated the memory, but Coleen Nolan skated (I use the word loosely) to I’m In The Mood For Dancing.

I’m not sure if I am outraged at Karen’s dissing of Queen Katarina, or just embarrassed on her behalf. Bit of both, probably.

Apparently Heidi was “blinking back tears” and has to “hit out” at Katarina for Katarina not being happy with Heidi’s overreliance on lifts. I don’t know if you’d want The Sun to be linked to here but that’s where I read it.

I find it very silly. Imagine how she would have reacted to Jason’s comments.

For those who watch why is DOI dying this year is it the length of show, the panel (no villian or singer) the C lists contestents or something else and as its always been a sub par Strictly do you think its terminal.

To be fair, the ratings have dropped every series since 2008. It’s probably just reached the tipping point where the show’s lost whatever cultural cache it once had. I think part of it is the fact that by this point, there’s a feeling that there’s nothing really new that they have to show us.